Cold, True enough.
On Oct 3, 5:01 am, Cold Water <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Why Some Women Hate Sarah Palin > By Belinda Luscombe > > Some polls are suggesting that after gaining an initial bump, McCain's > campaign is being hobbled by Sarah Palin's vice-presidential candidacy. The > voters who are deserting her fastest, some of whom are even calling on her to > withdraw, are mostly women. > > Ah, women, the consistently, tragically underestimated constituency. What the > Democrats learned during the primaries and the Republicans might now be > finding out the hard way, I learned at my very academic, well-regarded > all-girls high school: that is never to discount the ability of women to open > a robust, committed, well-thought-out vat of hatred for another girl. > > Women are weapons-grade haters. Hillary Clinton knows it. Palin knows it too. > When women get their hate on, they don't just dislike, or find disfavor with, > or sort of not really appreciate. They loathe — deeply, richly, sustainingly. > I do not say this to disparage my gender; women also love in more or less the > same way. > > When men disagree, the steps to resolution are reasonably clear and > unsophisticated. Acts of physical violence are visited upon one another's > person or property, and the whole thing blows over. Women? Nu-unh. We savor > the discord. We draw it out. We share our contempt with our friends, like a > useful stock tip, or really good salsa. And then we all go hate together: a > mutually encouraging group activity for when the book group gets quiet. > > The hatred women have for Sarah Palin, and others had for Hillary before her, > is not necessarily about politics. Anybody can run the numbers on how many > people Palin's pro-life, pro-gun, socially conservative policies will seduce > and how many they will alienate. Rather, the test that the McCain campaign > failed to put her through was the Abbotsleigh Ladies College test. (Named > after my high school. Go, green and gold!). It's a simple three-point > pass-fail exam: Will the other girls like her? > > Here's why Palin doesn't make the grade: > > 1. She's too pretty. This is very bad news. At school, pretty girls tend to > be liked only by other pretty girls. The rest of us, whose looks hover > somewhere around underwhelming, resent them and whisper archly of their > "unearned attention." So, if everyone calls your candidate "hot," you're in a > whole mess of trouble. If the Pakistani head-of-state more or less hits on > her, well, yes, she'll get a sympathy vote, but we're in Dukakis-in-the-tank > territory. It's an admiration vaporizer. (Of course a candidate can't be too > ugly, or it will scare the men, who are clearly shallow as a gender.) > > 2. She's too confident. This also bodes ill. Women have self-esteem issues. > But they also have other-women's-esteem issues. As almost any woman — from > the head of the Budgerigar Breeders association to Queen Elizabeth — can > attest, it's almost impossible to get confidence right. Too timid and you're > a pushover. Too self-aggrandizing and you're a bad word unless it's about a > dog, or Project Runway's Kenley. Or Michelle, my best friend until 9th grade, > after she won that debating prize and got cocky. > > 3. She could embarrass us. History is not on Palin's side. Every time a woman > gets a plum job, be she Hewlett-Packard's ex-boss, Carly Fiorina, or CBS's > Katie Couric, there's always that whispery fear that people will think she > got the job just because she's a woman. So if things don't go well — and a > couple of YouTube clips have suggested that they're certainly not going well > for Palin — women are the first to turn on her for making it harder for the > rest of us to louse up at work. > > The fact of the matter is once a female decides it's over with another > female, it's like an end-stage marriage. No matter how seemingly benign, > every attribute becomes an affront: the hair, the voice, the husband, the > moose-shooting, the glasses, the big family, the making rape victims pay for > their own rape test kits. > > I know, I know. With all this extra baggage a female candidate has to bear, > the chances of finding a woman whom other women won't hate seem skinnier than > last year's jeans. But don't despair, if all else fails, we could just do > what we always do and just vote in some guy. It's worked so well for us in > the past. > > a.. Find this article at: > b..http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1846832,00.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
